


Noticing

by FromFanToStan



Series: First Times [2]
Category: One Direction (Band), zayn malik - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 14:05:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17809328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromFanToStan/pseuds/FromFanToStan
Summary: Harry and Zayn notice each other, but not in the same way nor at the same time. It causes tension between them, to put it mildly.





	Noticing

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction and in no way resembles anything that actually happened in that X Factor house. In fact, I've probably gotten numerous things wrong. Forgive me in advance.

Zayn will be the first to admit that he is odd, not in a charming way like Harry but just odd. His hobbies are better suited to a twelve year old than someone almost eighteen--graffiti (you could call it street art if you wanted to be fancy), comics, especially the collected works of Garth Ennis, skateboarding, smoking weed. 

He knows that it’s because his parents were semi-observant Muslims and his dad an immigrant that they felt the family had to be models in the neighborhood, plus as the oldest and the only boy he had to set an example, but he had to leave home to even explore his interests in things he genuinely liked.

It makes sense that his relationships are odd, too. The first girl after the auditions that he dates is a mom who has to pay his way because he has no money at all. Rebecca is lovely and kind, but after a while his pretty eyes and sharp cheekbones aren’t enough. He understands. He also has known for a while that he’s bi, and when Rebecca tells him that they should break it off he doesn’t fight her. He is living with four other boys, all fit in their own ways, and it is better not to have a girlfriend. His reasoning on this is fuzzy, but that’s alright.

So of course his relationship with Harry Styles, the baby of the band and a devil with the face of an angel, is going to be odd. Harry is eccentric, if you look past the angelic face and the charm. When Zayn first really noticed him, he saw the beauty but even more he saw the eccentricity, and if it made him feel at home, it also made him want to run far far away. Harry is risky, Zayn thinks. He’s way too open with his thoughts and feelings. It’ll cause trouble. Also, if Harry is as odd as Zayn suspects, then Zayn will want to tell him things, confide in him, and that hasn’t gone well for him with boys in the past.

Later, when they are at the point where they are confessing things, Harry will say for him meeting Zayn was a _zizzle_ , a portmanteau that Harry makes up and then treats as a great joke, as if he weren’t confessing something. Harry loves to make up new words, and this combines _zap_ and _sizzle_ , which Harry finds hilarious. This is one of Zayn's first surprises about him. Harry is full of surprises as soon as Zayn starts thinking he has him figured out.

Harry says later, after he has taken up sitting close to Zayn on the sofa at the back of the bus and whispering in his low voice in Zayn’s ear, the first time he saw Zayn walk into a room he felt like he stuck his finger in an electric socket: "That was the zap, Zayn! And then it was like being around you kept me at a low hum all the time if you were in the room, like I knew you were there, and it made the room different. D’you know what I mean? That was the sizzle! See, _zizzle_.” Zayn did know what Harry meant, all too well, but he just raised his eyebrows at the time.

It made Harry tongue-tied and awkward, he claims, and it’s why Harry never talked to Zayn, why Zayn, thinking in his usual way that everyone disliked him, had decided the posh little star in the making thought he was too good for a working class lad like him. Then, once they started talking, his feelings _zizzled_ , too, Harry says. He was always a bit fired up and anxious around Zayn, a bit clumsier, a bit more likely to show off, a bit more likely to be sexual with anyone else nearby so that he didn’t throw himself at Zayn. Zayn, wise in the moment, doesn’t say that Harry is awkward and sexual a lot anyway.

Zayn listens to Harry’s description, looks at him thoughtfully, and privately wonders if feelings that start out so dramatically won’t die just as dramatically. He wonders why Harry tells him all of this without the smallest trace of embarrassment.

For his part, the noticing is so gradual that he almost misses it. Once they are a proper boy band, deep into performances on X Factor, he knows Harry is around, in the way you do with anyone you see but who has Nothing To Do With You. He notices Harry looks really young, wonders idly if he’d lied about his age because of his round face and eyes, his soft hair, the traces of baby fat still clinging to his hips. They explain and reinforce his naïveté and his optimistic expectation that everyone is lovely and will love him. He is charming; Zayn will grant him that. But among the many qualities Zayn doesn't trust, charm tops the list. Charming people get their way and can use people easily. Zayn isn't going to be used.

Then one night everything changes in the space of a few minutes. He finds Harry in the garden of the X Factor house, sitting on the bench where Zayn sneaks his nightly cig. He was going to turn back, wait a few minutes to see if Harry would go back inside, when he sees that his shoulders are shaking. It makes Zayn curious.

He walks over, trying to see if Harry is laughing or crying. He is an emotional little twat, so it could be either. Harry lifts his head at the sound of Zayn’s feet crunching on the gravel path.

“Oh,” he says, “I can go. Sorry, you smoke out here at night.”

Zayn had thought no one knew. Before he can say anything else, Harry’s eyes well up and tears spill out of his eyes and roll down his round cheeks, shining faintly in the moonlight. His perfect little Cupid’s bow lip crumples, and when has Zayn begun to notice Harry's mouth? He moves over to the bench, unable to resist tears, as his sisters have exploited for years.

“What’s the matter then, Harry? Louis being a dick?”

“‘M just homesick. I miss my mum, and I miss my mates, and I even miss my stupid sister.” Harry ends with a little gulp that touches something in Zayn, reminds him of how fiercely he also wants to go home most days. Maybe Harry’s devil may care, everything is great attitude is hiding something not just odd but also sensitive. It seems unlikely, but this whole X Factor experience is the most unlikely and sometimes the oddest occurence in Zayn’s life, holding in front of him a shimmering mirage of fame and money, just out of his reach. Anything is possible.

He sits. Awkwardly, he throws an arm around Harry, then stiffens in astonishment when Harry crumples against him, sobbing. He snakes an arm around Zayn’s waist, pinning Zayn’s arm to his side, and Zayn feels the softness of Harry’s upper arm against his own.

“Oi, ‘s alright, tho. It’ll be alright,” he repeats uselessly, as he leans his own head on top of Harry’s, feeling the silkiness of his curls.

And that’s how it starts, with Harry’s curls. That night, after a few minutes, Harry stops crying, sniffs deeply, unwinds himself from Zayn, shakes his hair violently in front of his face in the way he has. “‘M better. Thanks, Zayn.” He wanders back toward the house, looking coltish, impossibly young, and vulnerable, even from the back.  
Zayn lights his cigarette, smokes it thoughtfully, and thinks he might watch Harry a bit. Make sure he is alright.

He does watch. He sees Harry soften when Louis is in the room, even though he has the same dimpled grin for everyone. He learns to pick out his oddly low drawl from amongst the cacophony of sounds and voices in the crowded house. He finds reasons to sit next to Harry when they are on the stairs for their video diary or crowded on a sofa for an interview. Worse, he finds himself reaching for Harry’s curls, unable to control the hand that wants to stroke through all that soft silk. 

He learns that he can calm Harry if he threads his fingers up into the strands starting from his neck and then scratching softly against the soft spot at the base of his skull. He comes to love the way Harry will lean into him, how in this way as in others Harry is gentle and compliant. He tells Harry that when they have money he will take him to Paris, and Harry looks up at him, eyes shining. Zayn falls under Harry’s spell, like everyone else. At the time he berates himself for being another of Harry’s fools.

*********

Harry remembers the first time he sees Zayn, how it literally leaves him breathless. His body had jerked slightly and trembled at the sight of him, his peripheral vision becoming a sea of spots and his field of vision literally narrowing until he could only see the raven-haired boy who had strolled backstage looking unimpressed. He is vaguely aware of the sensation of falling and being held in place at the same time. He knows it’s Big and that Zayn is Someone Important To Me. To his chagrin, Zayn seems unaffected.

He tries to get Zayn’s attention, but it’s hard. He’s quiet, and he’s sarcastic sometimes, which intimidates Harry. Zayn and Louis hit it off first, and sometimes when Louis has Harry between his legs and is stroking his hair, they will have a minute alone, and he’ll use it to complain: “What is it about Zayn? He’s so quiet and hard to get to know! I don’t think he likes me at all!”

Louis is unsympathetic. In the meantime, whenever Zayn is in the room, Harry goes manic. He tells bad jokes, he drapes himself over Louis or whoever is handy, he takes any excuse to strip down to his pants but Zayn avoids looking at Harry even more when he’s mostly naked, so that’s not helpful. He can’t help stripping off his top, though, because his skin feels like it’s buzzing, and he really would like to be completely naked.

Harry has known for years that he is bisexual, and he’s in a band with fit lads. Louis is especially fit, with his sweet, plump bum and wonderfully thick and straight brown blond hair, his piercing sky blue eyes, and his wicked sense of humor, but it still happens that when Zayn comes in a room Harry feels hyper-aware and filled with desire.

It settles a bit, the _zizzle_ , after a few weeks. They’re together all the time, after all, as soon as they’re made a band. Harry learns to breathe normally when Zayn’s in the room, but he still feels feverish and unable to sit still. He blushes easily. Louis thinks he’s the cause, teases Harry for catching feels in that mean way of his, but Harry doesn’t correct him.

He wants Zayn’s approval desperately, but even naming the band hasn’t helped. He’s proud of himself for thinking of it. The other boys slap him on the back and say, “Good one, Haz!” He has a nickname already, but if Zayn has to speak to him he calls him Harry.

Because he's paying attention, he notices that Zayn sneaks out through the slider every night. He watches him as he passes the pool and disappears down the gravel path to where Harry knows there is a concrete bench. From the window on the stair landing, he can just see Zayn’s black hair and the brief flare of a lighter. Harry wishes that he smoked. He might join Zayn on the bench, and then they would talk about life and girls and what fame would be like, because Harry is sure they are going to be famous. He has a feeling about it, and Harry trusts his feelings.

One night he is feeling lonely. Louis is somewhere, not with Harry. Harry tried to kiss him, and it hadn’t gone well. Apparently he had misread the signals? He doesn’t have any signage on this strange new road he’s on, and there’s no one to advise him. He thought maybe Louis could take his mind off Zayn, but instead he had pushed Harry away and told him to fuck off. This becomes a thing Louis does, telling Harry to fuck off, although Harry is slow to catch on when Louis looks at him the way he does.

He slips out, past the pool, down to the concrete bench. It’s still pretty early; he’ll have the place to himself. He sits and lets his loneliness and too specific longing and general uncertainty engulf him. Pretty soon he’s crying, and it’s good he’s alone because he doesn’t think anyone would understand. He almost misses the crunch of the gravel and the steps coming closer to him. _Zayn_. Anybody but Zayn, but here he is anyway, seeing Harry acting like a baby.

“Oh, sorry,” he sniffles, trying to sound normal, “I'll go. You come out here to smoke. I didn’t realize how late it was getting.” Great. Now Zayn knows that he’s been paying attention, knows his habits, and he doesn’t want him to know. He doesn’t want Zayn to make fun of him or call him a baby. Zayn is friends with Louis, and Louis can be cruel sometimes.

Instead, Zayn sits beside him and puts an arm around his shoulder. Harry looks over at him, and his profile in the bright moonlight looks beautiful, making Harry sizzle anew. His eyelashes are so long and thick and silky that Harry feels overwhelmed by them and by the situation, and then he embarrasses himself by collapsing against Zayn and sobbing out of sheer nerves. He throws his arm around Zayn’s waist, nuzzles his neck, and _wants_. He thinks he might die from it.

Zayn says something soothing and trite, about as helpful as his mum, but it doesn’t matter because it’s Zayn and he has never imagined to be snuggling against him, for Zayn to be comforting him when he’s crying. He’s not making fun of him at all. He’s nice. He smells good, too, of tobacco and a spiciness that seems natural, and a little of an after shave that Harry sees Zayn needs, because already at seventeen he has stubble. He is unbearably sexy.

Harry wants to indulge in the moment, but he notices that inside his shorts his dick is starting to get hard. He makes himself pull away before he is fully erect, since Zayn couldn’t help but notice. Zayn might be nice, but he’s been rejected enough for one day, and anyway, he’s Harry Styles, and he’s going to be a pop star, and people like him, even, probably, Zayn. 

He takes a deep breath, shakes his hair out and back into what he already calls his signature look, and he stands up, mutters something that probably doesn’t make sense, and stumbles off down the path back toward the house.

The next day he avoids Zayn’s eyes, and Zayn says nothing to him, but he is suddenly around more, and he touches Harry. At first it’s tentative, just a light touch against the back of Harry’s head, but Harry lets him know that it’s good, he likes it, with a sigh of contentment and a nudge against Zayn’s hand. Pretty soon they find each other on sofas at interviews, the sofas that seem made for four boys, not five. He’s not complaining, though, because Zayn’s leg is against his, and sometimes he throws an arm behind Harry on the back. Zayn whispers to Harry that when they have money Zayn will take him to Paris. Harry is content for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are nourishment.


End file.
